A youth­ful San Juan Jabloteh team flexed its mus­cles at Ken Cooke Recre­ation Ground at the Po­lice Bar­racks in St James on Sat­ur­day evening as they de­feat­ed Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers 4-2, cour­tesy of goals from some of this year’s Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League stars. 

Der­reL ‘Zoom Zoom’ Gar­cia, who need­less­ly grabbed the spot­light af­ter lead­ing at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege to the League ti­tle which re­mains un­re­solved be­cause a reg­is­tra­tion is­sue, has now been mak­ing his name in the top-flight Tier 1 of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League with a 23rd-minute item that lift­ed his team to a 2-0 ad­van­tage. 

Gar­cia’s late re­turn from a tri­al in Spain in 2024, where he al­leged­ly spent more than a year out of the school sys­tem, is still be­ing chal­lenged, af­ter both the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee and the Ap­peals Com­mit­tee ruled that the south­ern school should be stripped of its SS­FL Pre­mier­ship ti­tle for Gar­cia’s role. 

St. Bene­dict’s prin­ci­pal, Gre­go­ry Quan Kep, has tak­en the mat­ter to the SS­FL Ar­bi­tra­tion. The mat­ter will be ad­ju­di­cat­ed to­mor­row (Tues­day). 

On Sat­ur­day Eli­jah Seechan, a for­mer SS­FL play­er, hand­ed the Jabloteh men the ad­van­tage af­ter just the sec­ond minute of play. But af­ter ‘Zoom Zoom,’ Gar­cia pushed his team up 2-0 in the 23rd minute, and an­oth­er SS­FL star, An­dell Fras­er, who proved to be a thorn in the side for many de­fences for his school, St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, hand­ed Jabloteh a 3-0 lead when he found the net in the 29th minute. 

Lead­ing 3-0, the Rangers, still strug­gling to set­tle as a unit, pulled a goal back in the 40th minute from Isa­iah Lee. It would be one of two items for Lee on the night as Rangers was look­ing for on­ly its sec­ond win of the sea­son in six match­es. 

Lee’s item took the teams to the break with the scores at 3-1 with Jabloteh in the po­si­tion of as­cen­dan­cy. And it got six min­utes af­ter the re­sump­tion when for­mer San Juan North Sec­ondary de­fend­er Keanu John added a fourth goal in the 51st minute for Jabloteh to re­store their three-goal ad­van­tage. 

Lee then com­plet­ed his brace in the 62nd minute to fash­ion a dar­ing come­back, and five min­utes from the end of reg­u­la­tion time, Ri­car­do Williams re­duced the score to with­in a goal, 4-3. How­ev­er, it was not enough as Jabloteh held out for the win. 

In an­oth­er match, Ea­gles FC got its first win of the sea­son by beat­ing Prison Ser­vice 4-2 in the oth­er match of a dou­ble­head­er at the Ken Cooke Ground. How­ev­er, Jabloteh moved two places up the 12-team stand­ings from sixth to fourth with their 4-3 win over the Rangers. 

SAT­UR­DAY’S RE­SULTS

Jabloteh 4 (Eli­jah Seechan 2nd, Der­rel Gar­cia 23rd, An­dell Fras­er 29th, Keanu John 51st) vs Rangers- 3 (Isa­iah Lee 40th, 62nd, Ri­car­do Williams 85th)

Ea­gles FC- 4 (Moses Kaikaran 2nd, Aikim An­drews 52nd, 74th, Ri­car­do John 66th) vs Pris­ons- 2 (Je­re­mi­ah Vi­dale 39th, 58th)

Lat­est Stand­ings

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*GD*Pts

1. De­fence Force FC*7*7*0*0*31*9*22*21

2. Cen­tral FC*7*5*0*2*16*9*7*15

3. AC PoS*7*5*0*2*16*10*6*15

4. Jabloteh*7*3*2*2*17*15*2*11

5. Po­lice FC*7*3*1*3*20*12*8*10

6. Cale­do­nia AIA*6*3*1*2*10*13*-3*10

7. Club San­do*6*1*3*2*12*8*4*6

8. Prison Ser­vice FC*7*1*3*3*9*14*-5*6

9. Point Fortin Civic*6*2*0*4*8*12*-4*6

10. 1976 FC Phoenix*6*2*0*4*10*17*-7*6

11. La Hor­quet­ta Rangers*7*1*2*4*10*16*-6*5

12. Ea­gles FC*7*1*0*6*7*31*-24*3